A few have asked a bit about how we get so many live AB's in practice and I will share a bit of my response. This is just a general idea of how we set up practice often. It's not as much about what we are doing, but more how we do it. Certainly not an absolute. See thread (1)

It really requires Coaches that can pitch live for extended period of time. We are fortunate to have 3 coaches who can do so unless you are throwing pitchers. We throw from 50 feet and usually have two teams. One on offense and one on defense. (2)

It is certainly fast paced. Half of offensive group is in cages while other half is hitting on field. We put them in every situation imaginable and mix up counts and such. Sometimes 1-1, sometimes full count, or 2-0 or 0-2. Just depends on what we need work on. (3)

Live hitting group is also working situation as baserunners. So team 1 group A in cages, team 1 group B live, team 2 on defense. Sometimes each group hits for 10 minutes, sometimes 20 and sometimes even 40 minutes. So that is 4 live hitting groups to get through. (4)

If I had a high school team I would have JV/varsity practicing together doing it. Usually practice looks like this:

30 minutes Warm Up/Throwing Drills
20-30 minutes positional/team defense
100 minutes- Coach Pitch Situations Live or Pitchers throwing if it is appropriate. (5)

We have the pitchers throw 45 foot short boxes to hitters at 50-60% intensity. Spot work essentially but hitters are hitting. If pitchers need to work on spinning it in hitters count say 3-1 that is count we will work or 0-2. (6)

Pitchers just work command and hitters work counts trying to win at bat. Distance determines intensity. If they are at 60 feet then they are naturally at a higher intensity. If at 45 feet they back off and work more command. (7)

The amount of game speed hitting, baserunning, and defensive reps is awesome. We of course stop as needed to teach. (8)

We rarely just take traditional BP on the field in practice. If we are on the field it is competition of some sort. Cage is where we work on the swing. In the box it's about winning the AB for the hitter and executing the situation trying to earn points by moving runners. (9)

Usually each base advanced is a point and we also take away points for controllable mistakes both offense and defense. For example FB punch out -1 or BR mistake -1 or No communication-1. Can gain or lose points offensively and defensively. (10)